


moments full of understanding

by statusquo_ergo



Series: welcome to the neon city [1]
Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 01, Things you said that made me feel like shit, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27676921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: And to think, we began with the very best of intentions.
Relationships: Mike Ross/Harvey Specter
Series: welcome to the neon city [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023864
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	moments full of understanding

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Things you said that made me feel like shit
> 
> Set shortly after the events of "Identity Crisis" (s01e08). I promise this is pre-slash, it really is, but it's also accounting for the fact that the premise of this show is actually really batshit crazy, if you think about it. Like how stupid reckless was it for Harvey to hire Mike and then for them to pretend to an entire corporation and also in open court that he had graduated from Harvard Law and had a law license? I think it's reasonable to assume the stress might get to them at some point before they find their rhythm.

It’s a pretty good solution, all in all. Not ideal, but then, Mike isn’t entirely sure what such a thing would look like; his not having spent the past eight months committing certified identity fraud, probably, and it’s a bit late for that. Anyway, Lola swears she knows what she’s doing, and the extra insurance can’t hurt. Every little bit helps.

Knocking on the door to Harvey’s office, Mike lets himself in without waiting to be invited, putting on his most disarming smile as Harvey looks up from his desk.

“So I know you said not to,” he starts off with what in hindsight might be the world’s worst possible attempt at levity, “but remember when I said we should ask Lola Jensen to hack into Harvard’s alumni records to add me to the rolls?”

Harvey frowns. “You didn’t.”

“Didn’t have to.” Mike ambles over to the couch and takes a seat, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. “She wanted to do me a favor for the Stable Shelters thing, this one’s all her.”

“And you didn’t stop her?”

Didn’t…

And just how exactly would _that_ have worked?

“Like I said,” he repeats, “she did it herself. But, I… I should be thanking her for covering my tracks, I mean you know that was gonna come back and bite us in the ass sooner or later.”

Setting down the pen in his hand and pushing his work aside, Harvey levels Mike with a somber stare. “Mike,” he says, “I know your experience with the law so far has mostly been from the lower end of the food chain, but I know you must’ve heard of a paper trail.”

Paper trail, please. As if Mike didn’t know enough to insist on cash payments for all his falsified LSATs.

“I know what a paper trail is,” he says. “I’m not an idiot. That’s the whole point of this, though, I need a paper trail so I _don’t_ get caught.”

“You sure you’re not an idiot?”

What the fuck?

“Yes, Harvey,” Mike takes his feet off the table and sets them on the ground, “what the hell’s wrong with you, I’m covering my tracks. I thought you’d be happy about this.”

Harvey laces his fingers together and sets them down on the desk in front of him, his lips drawing into a taut line.

“Mike,” he says again. “Did it ever occur to you that I might’ve had a reason for telling you not to go down this road when you suggested it to me the first time?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, not having had much success at putting that reasonably unpleasant meeting out of his mind, “‘cause you said it wasn’t worth the trouble.”

“Because it wasn’t worth taking the unnecessary _risk,_ ” Harvey says. “You tell someone you went to Harvard Law, you tell someone you work at Pearson Hardman, they’re going to take your word for it. All you’re doing now is throwing gasoline in a fire pit and hoping no one has any matches.”

“But what if someone _does_ go looking?” Mike retorts, sensing that he’s falling into a trap but unable to back down now, not when the argument is so ridiculous. “If there’s nothing there, I’d be screwed.”

Harvey sets his elbows on his armrests, leaning back in his chair with a foreboding scowl on his face. “How much do you trust Lola not to make any mistakes?” he challenges. “She might’ve been able to hack into Harvard’s database, but are you sure she didn’t leave any trace of what she’d done? And what about the records she put in for you, do you know what they are? If someone asks you about them, are you going to have an answer? What classes she put you in, what your grades were, what clubs you joined, why your picture isn’t in any yearbook?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it!”

“That is _exactly_ your problem,” Harvey snaps, flattening his hands against the desk and hunching his shoulders in such a way that comes off equally split between aggressive and defeated, assertive and guarded. “You barge into these situations without thinking of how you’re going to get yourself out of them because you just assume you’ll be able to think of something when the time comes, but you know what? The stakes are different here, the stakes are _real,_ and you can’t keep flying blind and assuming everything’s going to work out for you!”

“Oh,” Mike snaps back, pushing himself off the couch, “right, because this is all _my_ fault. You know what, Harvey, I have been doing my best to cover my ass this entire time, not to mention keep you _out_ of that fire, but _you’re_ the one who got me into this mess and I think the least you could do is be a little supportive every once in a while!”

It’s a low blow, it’s not fair, it’s picking at wounds that haven’t yet scarred, but god dammit, Mike is _trying,_ he’s doing the best he can with what he’s got and Harvey… Harvey ought to know that much. Harvey ought to have his back, after everything he’s done. Everything Mike has done, everything Harvey has made him do.

Harvey draws his shoulders back, every trace of defensiveness disappearing from his posture in an instant.

“‘A little supportive,’” he mimics. “You don’t know _half_ the shit I’ve done for you, _half_ the shit I’ve had to put up with. You think you’re special, Mike? You think you’re irreplaceable? I was ready to fire you after one day and I gave you a _gift_ letting you think you could threaten me. Do you know how deep I could bury you if you tried to blackmail me? If you tried to double cross me? You want to accuse me of knowingly engaging in fraud, I’d like to see you prove it. You bring this up to Jessica, you try to go over her head to the ethics committee, and I will bury you so deep you will _never_ find your way back out.”

God only knows what Harvey’s dealing with right now. What kind of stress he’s under, what fights he’s fighting that he’s not telling Mike about. Not burdening him with, not trusting him with. Either, maybe, or both; Mike doesn’t know him nearly as well as he thinks he does, nearly as well as he’d like to. Not nearly well enough to guess. Mike can’t take this kind of shit personally, these kinds of words that don’t mean anything, that Harvey will regret in the morning.

He will, won’t he?

Mike’s fingers twitch, his nails scraping against his palms.

“You know what?” he says, tremulous and brittle, his eyes narrowed, turned away. “I’m not stupid, I know you’ll throw me under the bus first chance you get. But before that happens, I just want you to know one thing.” He laughs tersely, a scratching sound, and shakes his head.

“You ruined my life.” He bites his lip. “I might not have had much before I met you, it might not’ve been perfect, but it everything I had was _mine._ And this mistake I’m making, this act I’m trying to pull off? This dead end I’m running into?” He smiles, bitter and cold, and raises his eyes to Harvey’s.

“You did this to me.”

Harvey stands, his rigid spine and his stone face ten times, ten thousand times worse than the fury he radiated only moments ago. Mike does his best to bear it, holding firm in the face of all of their terrible mistakes, their arrogance and their stupidity crushing him down, as Harvey merely stands and stares.

“Get out.”

He barely catches it, the words too soft to reach across the floor, but he knows it without knowing how, without hearing or seeing Harvey’s lips move.

What else is there to say at a time like this? After everything, after all.

Mike walks out blindly, the route traced by memory, his hand brushing up against the wall as the door swings shut in his wake.

Harvey collapses into his desk chair and fixes his blank gaze on the wall beside the window.

Look too close, and the whole world is blacked out.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to say hi on [tumblr](https://statusquoergo.tumblr.com)!


End file.
